GL Garrad Hassan hosts Solar Finance Event

GL Garrad Hassan organised a Solar Finance Q&A and Networking Evening in London recently. The event was co-hosted with UK law firm, Burges Salmon and was run as part of the Clean Energy Finance and Development event at the Hilton London Tower Bridge Hotel. More than 60 participants attended the event, including representatives from the solar industry, private investors and solar project developers.

A panel of GL Garrad Hassan and Burges Salmon experts gave short briefings which were open to questions throughout, a novel approach designed to promote interaction between presenters and attendees.

Ioannis Papadopoulos from GL Garrad Hassan's Strategy and Policy Group, led off the sessions with an overview of the different global solar markets and their policies, ranking them according to their potential for investor and developers. Daniel Barandalla of GL Garrad Hassan's Solar team, followed up with a briefing on the current status and future prospects of PV technology, touching on such issues as the current state of the PV market, both in terms of costs, product quality and manufacturer market share and the various types of PV modules. His presentation spurred discussion on a variety of subjects including quality assurance of PV modules, the lifetime performance of components and cost pathways for the technology.

The operational performance of PV plants and the assessment of a PV plant's energy production using GL Garrad Hassan's SunFarmer modelling software were addressed by Stefan Mau, from the company's Solar division. His presentations led to debate on the subjects of PV plant Performance issues and warranty claims, as well as on issues relating to on-site measurements versus satellite/remote sensing datasets.

GL Garrad Hassan's sessions were rounded off by a presentation on due diligence risks by Dr Cesar Hildago Lopez, the Global Head of Solar Practice and Manager of the company's Barcelona office. His presentation addressed the main contractual, resource, operational and design risks of solar projects. Dr Garrad, taking part in the discussion following the presentation, drew links between the development of other technologies and solar power.

The evening's sessions were concluded by a presentation from Ross Fairley, of Burges Salmon, who discussed the nature of regulatory risk and what can be done to mitigate it. His subject ignited a flurry of wide-ranging and lively conversations on solar market expectations as well as on broader subjects such as investor and developer approaches and expectations in a global market.

Please find a short film about the evening here.